News
Benedict Bermange provides statistics to cricket's top pundits - he's never stumped for facts
June 17, 2010 12:51
By, Sharron Livingston
1 min read
BySharron Livingston, Sharron Livingston
Benedict Bermange has been counting the days to the start of the new cricket season.
Now that it's in full swing, he is wowing commentators such as Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain and David Gower with his knowledge of facts and figures.
The Sky Sports cricket statistician is helping them answer questions such as: "How many dot balls in the last five overs?", "When was the last boundary?", "How many overs has Flintoff bowled in this spell?" (And all that without even batting an eyelid).
Mr Bermange, 35, who has been Sky Sports' cricket statistician for the past 1,270 days (as he would say), tells People: "My job is to either give the commentators something to talk about or back up numerically what they have been discussing on-air. I project forward to what might occur, which players might make an impact or any interesting landmarks."
Mr Bermange, born in north London and now living in Bristol, follows the cricket seasons across the world. In the winter he was in South Africa working on the England tour, and next winter he will be Down Under for the Ashes series.
"My career started when my father taught me how to score and took me to Lord's back in 1984 with the promise that this was the day that England would finally beat the West Indies.
It didn't happen because Gordon Greenidge hit the only match-winning fourth innings double-century in Test history."
Referring to Mr Bermange's dedication, former England Test cricketer Sir Ian Botham said: "He really needs to get a life."
Bantering aside, without Mr Bermange, commentary would just not be cricket.
A day in the life of a cricket statistician can be seen on www.laramie.co.uk/movie.htm